


Designed and Directed By His Red Right Hand

by Mellow_Yellow



Series: Halloweener [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Haunted Houses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:02:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellow_Yellow/pseuds/Mellow_Yellow
Summary: The sun was beginning its descent over the bluffs, and Rae was staring sternly down at Steph.“Look at me,” Rae said, voice firm, “look at me, in my eyes, and promise me this house isn’t haunted.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> To get back in the writing groove, I’ll be posting some one-shot Halloween-themed stuff, and today’s is from the @thewritershandbook October Spooky Writing Challenge.

The sun was beginning its descent over the bluffs, and Rae was staring sternly down at Steph.

“Look at me,” Rae said, voice firm, “look at me _in my eyes_ , and promise me this house isn’t haunted.”

Steph sighed, demanded patience from the darkening sky, then looked back to Rae. “First of all, who actually believes in hauntings? Second, why would it be haunted?”

Rae put both hands on Steph’s shoulders, shaking her once, gently, bracingly.

“Um, because I’m a human in the world who has also consumed a moderate amount of popular media, and also, _look at the this place_.”

Obediently, Steph craned her neck around to get a look at the house. Rae joined her. They took in the tableau of the house on the hill. 

It was a two-story, but the second level looked rickety, like it had been placed on top of an already unsteady base by a giant hand that had pulled back slowly, hesitantly, waiting for the house to collapse under the weight but ultimately sighing in relief when the structure held. The entire building was backlit, somewhat unfortunately, by the setting sun, drawing attention to the shadows on the front porch and the dark, impenetrable windows on the second floor that looked far too watchful for something that theoretically not sentient.

With another eye roll, Steph turned to face Rae again, and leaned in. “Don’t be a baby,” she said. “There’s no such thing as a haunted anything. Be an adult. Join me in adulthood.”

“White person nonsense!” Rae yelped in a low voice, looking over her shoulder like someone was about to leap out of the trees and yell, _ah-ha!_. “Why would you say that out loud? Come on!”

“You’re spinning out a little here,” Steph said. She placed her hands over Rae’s where they still rested on her shoulders, squeezing comfortingly. “You’re letting yourself get worked up again—”

“ _Irregardless_ ,” Rae said, speaking over Steph pointedly, “look at me and promise you’re not withholding vital info, like ‘it’s built on a burial ground’ or ‘my dad always told weird stories about this place from when he was a kid,’ none of that, you feel me?”

Steph was getting a little annoyed, but Rae looked frustrated, and also spooked, and in the end Steph didn’t want her to be either of those things, so she opened her eyes wide, didn’t blink, and said, “I’m looking at you. I’m promising you: this is just a dumb old house, and my dad just wanted someone to be here for when the renters get here early tomorrow morning.”

All of this was true. Steph could see Rae processing it. She could also see her glancing untrustingly at the house, and it was getting dark out and Steph needed them to get inside sometime in the near future, so she played her trump card:

“This way we didn’t have to wake up at the asscrack of dawn to drive and meet them in the morning.”

The house was a good three-hour drive out into the country. Rae famously hated arising earlier than six a.m. Steph could see Rae beginning to crack. She went in for the kill.

“My dad just asked me to have them sign the lease, and give them the key.”

Usually only people working on the nearby farms rented it out. Steph hadn’t been to the place in years because it was so remote, and the same family had been living there for a few years before breaking the lease, and to her surprise, her dad had called, insisting he needed her help getting the new tenants settled. She hadn't heard from him in months. She was powerless to resist.

Rae knew Steph was weak when it came to her dad.

She watched Rae groan, capitulating. “Let’s just hurry up and spend the night in this obvious bad decision so we can go home.”

Steph held up her hand for a high five, which Rae ignored, and they both pulled their backpacks off and walked up the porch to the front door.

The lock was even stickier than Steph remembered, and it took a minute or two to get it open, Rae jerking at every night sound as she waited tensely beside her.

“You need to chill,” Steph told her when the lock finally clicked open. 

“Don't judge me,” Rae muttered back, glancing back into the dark fields behind them, only moving to follow Steph in.

The inside of the house was just as sparse as Steph remembered. It looked dusty, but that could also just be the night shadows. As they walked into the living room, the only room on the first floor beside the kitchen and a bathroom, she flipped the light on. She saw the dust was not a trick of the light, and also that the only furniture in the room was still a wide, raggedy sectional sofa Steph remembered jumping on as a little kid until her dad would come in and yelled at her for messing around.

She paused, lost in the thought, only startled back to awareness when Rae walked immediately to the couch and began busily shoving it away from its position beneath the picture window and up against the west wall.

“What?” Steph managed. “Why are you redecorating?”

“I’m not fucking sleeping on a couch with my back to a wide-open window.”

“Are you expecting a military ambush?” Steph didn’t mean to sound like a jerk, but that’s how it came out. She also couldn’t really help it. Rae could be a little intense sometimes, but this was getting out of hand. 

Rae turned and pointed at her. “Don’t question my methods.” The couch apparently safely relocated to the opposite wall, she nodded. “Want to get ready for bed?”

They had made the drive in their pajamas, no reason to get dressed up for a ride to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Steph couldn’t resist teasing her first.

“Want the grand tour? Go visit where the ghosts sleep in the attic?” Steph asked, a smile quirking on her lips. At Rae’s incredulous eyebrow raise, Steph held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, fine! We’ll just go right to bed like an elderly couple, no big deal.” 

“Don’t be a brat,” Rae said tiredly. She glanced down at her phone’s display. “It’s two in the morning. We’d be a pretty badass elderly couple if we stayed up til 2 a.m.” 

“It’s good to have goals,” Steph allowed, poking Rae in the side as she passed and smiling at her startled yelp. 

Rae followed closely at Steph’s elbow as they went to the bathroom, brushed their teeth, not even leaving while Steph peed, instead stubbornly standing near the door.

“We don’t actually need the buddy system,” Steph insisted as she washed her hands.

Rae gave her an unimpressed look that seemed to say, _Mock my hyper vigilance all you want, for it will be the only thing that protects us when the undead rise at midnight_.

Steph felt a sharp, almost painful tenderness as she looked at Rae’s hunched form, arms crossed stubbornly across her chest, clearly spooked but waiting for Steph to finish up so she could herd her safely to bed. She smiled softly at her, as hopelessly charmed as the first time she’d seen her diligently wiping up spilled wine that not her responsibility at a party.

“What?” Rae snipped, defensive.

“I just really like you,” Steph said, shrugging, because she did. Rae huffed, but she was gentle when she reached to tug Steph out of the bathroom and back down the hall to the living room.

Steph flopped down onto the couch. She patted the worn cushion beside her. “Hop on.” 

Rae dropped her backpack on the floor and dubiously turned off the overhead light. The room settled into dimness, the clear moonlight coming in from the picture window enough to see by. Still looking jumpy, Rae finally sat down, drawing her legs up off the ground, and immediately slid toward the middle, the ancient sectional dipping comfortable so they both ended in a comfortable jumble between the middle lumpy cushions.

Steph waited patiently as Rae went about her habitual way of adjusting them into a more comfortable spooning position, like they were in their own bed in their own apartment back in the city. It was comforting. Steph let herself be passively shifted into her traditional little situation. When Rae was satisfied with their arrangement, she finally settled back, pressing her nose into the back of Steph’s neck and exhaling restlessly.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Steph said, for probably the seventh time since she’d originally told Rae about the errand for her dad the day before.

“You’re welcome,” Rae muttered, somewhat grudgingly, also for the seventh time. But she stilled squeezed Steph to her from where her arms were wrapped tight at her waist, so Steph knew she wasn’t really mad. Just jumpy.

After a while Steph couldn’t help but turn and look at her, uneasy at her silence, or more accurately, her lack of complaining.

Rae was glaring across the room, through the open door into the kitchen. Steph followed her gaze. There was nothing but an empty kitchen to look at, with a slightly unkempt hallway leading the way before it.

She looked back at Rae, feeling like a pet owner trying to discern why her cat was staring so hard at nothing. She poked her in the shoulder.

“What do your elf eyes see, Rae?”

Steph meant it as joke, hoping to calm Rae down, but she still looked harried. Finally she blinked, looking away from the kitchen, and down at Steph, looking deeply unhappy and disgruntled. Steph sighed, feeling responsible, which Rae seemed to sense.

“It’s nothing,” she insisted. She scrunched down in the couch, pulling Steph back against her. “Let’s just go to sleep. It’s like a time machine to the morning.” 

Steph blinked. “I mean. You’re not wrong.”

They both began to settle.

There was a shuffling sound from the second floor.

Steph when still, ears straining. It sounded like it was coming from the bedroom directly above them, at the end of the second-floor hallway. There was a pause, then another shuffle. 

“What in the hell—” Steph muttered, already rearing up to stand and go investigate.

She was held back by the strong, nearly painful, grip Rae had on her arm. “Nope.”

“It sounds like something’s upstairs.”

Rae pulled her back, turning her around so they were face-to-face in the process. “That’s none of our business.”

Steph could feel herself starting to get annoyed. There was another distinct shuffle from the floor just above their heads. “Come on, it’s probably just an animal or something.”

“Probably. Leave it alone.”

“But if there’s like, a troop of raccoons just chilling upstairs and there are renters coming tomorrow—”

Rae shrugged, still holding tight to Steph’s arm. Rae was a skinny thing, but she was strong when she wanted to be, like right now. “Maybe there is. But I repeat: not our business.” 

Steph began to protest, but Rae shook her head, leaning to press her forehead to Steph’s. “Stop, stop,” she said, until Steph cut herself off, exasperated. “Stop.” They sat in dual silence for a moment, Rae’s stubborn, Steph’s impatient, and listened to a final shuffle above them, and then to the distinct, settling silence that followed.

“See?” Rae murmured after several beats of silence. “Not our business.”

To Steph’s annoyance, the silence held. The longer it went on, the less she wanted to go upstairs and have a poke around, although she would never admit her reticence out loud to Rae.

They settled back down onto the couch. Steph let Rae pull her back until they were snuggled together again, Rae’s wide hands laced together on Steph’s belly, cradling her in between her long legs.

Outside, night insects sang the song of their people. There was the occasional whirl of a nocturnal breeze. Upstairs, everything was silent, and Steph began to relax, even as she could feel the tension remain in Rae’s limbs behind her.

“Are you scared?” she asked after a while, keeping her voice at a whisper even as she felt silly. Something about the silence just felt thick, like it would be wrong to disturb it.

Rae huffed out a laugh. “Always.”

“No, I mean right now.” 

“Go to sleep.” 

“I’m just saying, there’s really no reason to be scared—”

“Not engaging.”

Steph snorted. “God, I’m just trying to talk to you.” 

“ _Not_. _Engaging_. Go to sleep.”

To soften the blow, Rae bent and pressed a kiss to Steph’s hair. Still a little miffed, Steph nonetheless let herself settle further down and closed her eyes.

It felt so nice with Rae’s arms around her. Steph wiggled back a little, pressing back into the cradle of Rae’s hips. A tendril of heat slithered low in her belly, and she figured why not, it wasn’t like they didn’t have the time. Slowly, sneakily, she wrapped her fingers around Rae’s hand, pulling it close to cup Steph’s breast. 

For a brief moment, Rae’s hand tightened, her thumb brushing over Steph’s nipple, and Steph shivered. 

Abruptly, Rae pulled her hand away. 

“Nope,” she said. 

Steph twisted around, glaring at her. “What the hell does that mean, nope?” 

“I mean nope, we’re not having sex.”

Against her best efforts, Steph heard her voice rise on a whine as she complained, “Why _not_?”

She saw a corner of Rae’s mouth twitch. For reasons Steph would never understand, Rae found it hilarious when Steph pouted, rather than annoying, which is how it made Steph feel, even when she couldn’t control it.

Rae clasped Steph’s face between both hands, smushing her cheeks like she loved to do. “God, it’s like you’ve never seen a movie.” She let out a full smile at Steph’s expression, and pressed a light kiss to her mouth. “I want full situational awareness in this place, man.”

With her hands occupied, Steph took advantage and slid her own hands down around Rae’s hips, spreading her thighs slightly with the movement. She watched with satisfaction as Rae’s breathing hitched a little, letting her grip on Steph’s face loosen, her fingers sliding to tangle in Steph’s hair. “That’s a really weird argument,” Steph reasoned. 

She pressed forward, kissing under Rae’s jaw, then down her neck. 

“I know it’s weird, but it’s my weird thing,” Rae tried valiantly, while still tilting her head back to give Steph better access. “I just don’t want to let me guard down here. It feels too weird.”

“Well, I’m just trying to make the whole trip worth your while, then,” Steph said, letting her breath coast over Rae’s neck in the spot where it was notoriously sensitive. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Rae grumbled, sounding annoyed that Steph might think she owed her anything, which Steph considered a classic Rae maneuver. 

Steph pulled back, looking her in the eye. Rae looked flushed, mouth open just a little. Steph knew Rae’s face by heart, could close her eyes and imagine it as easy as her own, but she still loved staring, drinking her in, her eyes and her thick mouth and the tiny scar on her chin. She darted forward to lick at her mouth, then pulled back. “Maybe I want to do that,” she said in a low voice.

She saw Rae hesitate that last crucial second, and felt herself smile, triumphant. 

Slithering around so her back pressed to Rae’s front again, Steph dug her heels into the arm of the sectional so she could roll her hips, pressing them back into Rae’s again. She felt Rae inhale sharply and smirked to herself, pleased. 

She turned her head to catch Rae’s mouth over her shoulder. Finally, Rae seemed suitably distracted, pushing eagerly into Steph’s mouth, tongues tangling. She slid her hand further into Steph’s pajama shorts, pushing her underwear aside and rubbing the heel of her hand between Steph’s legs. 

When Steph reached back to pull Rae closer, her nails scraped lightly at Rae’s scalp and made her moan, and Steph felt her hips start arching more rhythmically in response.

For a moment it felt odd, getting off with another woman as her dad’s janky, empty old rental in the middle of the country looked on disapprovingly, like a living embodiment of his dad’s worst nightmare made true. But as Rae shifted behind her to get a better angle, fingers becoming slippery as they slid into Steph’s cunt, making Steph’s breath speed up her, heart beat heavily, as Steph thought about the way Rae was focusing so totally on making Steph feel so hot and perfect, how much Rae loved getting Steph off, no matter what, no matter where, even if ‘where’ was at a house that gave Rae the creeps, that Steph had dragged her to even, to do a favor for Steph’s dad, a man Rae couldn’t even stand, just because Steph had asked, she would do _anything_ for Steph, it made Steph feel so guilty and so turned on at the same time—

“God, you feel so good,” Rae gasped, breaking away from Steph’s mouth to catch her breath. Hazily, Steph felt Rae moving so she could use her free hand to get herself off, and that was just not _fair_ , Rae never thought of herself, it was always Steph just taking.

“No, let me,” Steph insisted. She twisted so she could reach back and touch Rae, their fingers bumping as Steph searched for her clit, the blindness of it somehow making it hotter. 

It had been two years since the first nervous, bumbling time, pressed together in the back closet at the party of a distant mutual friend, but every time since just got better, smoother, clearer. 

Rae began a firm, pulsing rhythm with her thumb on Steph’s clit, and the orgasm crested through her in waves until she felt wrung-out and noodley. She did her best to help Rae finish herself off, but Rae was halfway there, the feeling of Steph coming always helping push her over the edge. Steph tried not to feel too smug, but it was tough.

“Jesus,” Rae slurred, collapsing limply back against the sectional as she pulled her hand out of Steph’s shorts.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Steph said, yet again. She paused, then snorted at her own joke. Rae just hugged her weakly in response.

“I love you,” she said tiredly, slightly cranky, like that explained everything and Steph shouldn’t need any other explanation. Like of course she would willingly let herself be spooked if it was what Steph wanted. Like Steph was worth all that, which was the weirdest, scariest thought of all. 

Before Steph could respond, she felt the first, light snore whistle past her ear, and Rae was officially down for the count.

Steph smiled, pleased. She would never say that getting Rae to relax and finally fall asleep had been her intention all along, but it was definitely a side benefit. But whereas Rae passed out like clockwork after sex, Steph felt strangely wired. Satisfied, but definitely not tired.

She stared at the wall blankly, sighing.

She would never admit it to Rae in a thousand years, but she’d never felt completely comfortable in this house. She would never go so far as to say it was haunted, because she was neither Rae nor a small child who believed in ghost stories, but it always made her a little on edge. 

It was easier to forget about when she was scoffing at Rae’s superstitions, the way her dad used to do when Steph would whine about going down to the basement to dust for cobwebs by herself. 

 _What are you, a baby?_ Her dad had teased, his voice always gruff and borderline sneering, just enough to shame Steph into behaving. She’d always thought of it as his way of making her braver. She was sure if she’d told it to Rae, she would have considered it yet another example of him being a dick.

And the longer she lay in silence, Rae’s warm, sleeping body behind her, the more the familiar creeping sensation built up. 

This was the type of thing her dad had incessantly mocked her for as a kid, what her mom had easily dismissed as a normal little kid imagination, her dad had seen as immature and weak. 

She thought of her dad, and how he would roll her eyes if she said that right now, it was like the house was on alert. Like it was waiting for something. Which was the dumbest thing to think, she chastised herself, what was she, a baby? _Rae_?

Above her, there was the shuffling sound again. Now, with Rae asleep and Steph herself beginning to feel on edge, the need to go and run off any varmint was distinctly less appealing.

Unbidden, she found her eyes darting restlessly around the living room for something to settle on, into the empty, dark kitchen, down the hallway to the bathroom, before coming to rest on the door to the second floor. 

The house was old and had a variety of outdated touches Steph had never really understood. One was the door at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor. Why would a stairwell need a door? She’d puzzled over it the few times her dad had brought her along for maintenance visits when she was little. 

Wildly, she found herself wondering at the door’s very existence as she stared at it in the dark, eyes wide to try and see through the shadows, waiting, waiting—

The door, seemingly of its own volition, swung slowly, casually open. 

Steph felt the breath stop in her chest.

Sharply, angrily, the voice in her head that sounded like her dad’s, jeering and unimpressed, went off _: So you’re afraid of doors, now?_ She flushed, hearing her dad’s familiar, jeering voice in her head, like she always did when she felt weak or afraid. _All it takes is a little wind and you’re scared?_  

Upstairs, there was a shuffle. The sound of a breeze whistled through the trees outside, the noise traveling through the thin walls, and she tried to force her shoulders to relax. 

It was just a draft opening the door, she told herself. And it was probably a raccoon upstairs. A raccoon, or maybe a squirrel. She’d need to take care of it when the renters got here in the morning anyway. And now she was too wired to sleep, and her dad was mocking her in her own head, and next thing she knew she was carefully lifting Rae’s arms up from around her and getting silently to her feet.

Being on her feet felt a little better, like she was taking action.

Not allowing herself to creep, instead forcing herself to take wide, striding steps like a comic book hero, she walked straight to the door and went up the stairs. 

When she hit the landing at the top, she felt her momentum leave her.

It was deathly silent upstairs. She could see inside the first two rooms, but she was sure the noise had been coming from the third room, the one at the end. She stared down the hall, the door just open enough for her to see a few feet inside.

She thought of Rae and how unsettled she was as a sort of silent pep talk. Rae was too nervous, too anxious. Steph was raised in a family where fear was weakness, or at least by a father who thought so. Her mom never cared about shit like that, and she’d ended up divorcing Steph’s dad because she said he was a bully. Steph had felt disloyal agreeing with her, like it was another way of admitting she was scared. 

She thought of her dad, and she started for the room at the end of the hall. 

She started at a faster pace, but the closer she got, the slower her feet connected, like she the atmosphere was getting thick and slowing her down. When she stepped into the room, the air felt heavy. The house was silent, heavy, louder in Steph’s ears than a scream. 

She heard something, a light hiss. She jerked, moving instinctively in the direction of the noise, however indistinct.

Something was in the closet.

She couldn’t see inside of it with the door ajar at this angle, blocking any clear view, and she couldn’t hear anything, but she knew all the same.

She needed to see. She took a breath, then a step. She took another step, her foot feeling heavy, dragging like it didn’t want to bring her any closer.

Closer now, she heard a shuffle from the closet, the familiar sound she’d heard from above, only this time it seemed more distinct. Like something dragging the sole of a shoe, or scuffing the floor. Her eyes wide, she saw through the crack at the hinge what looked like a shadow, a shape. It was tall. As she stared, it shifted, and frowned, peering forward to see clearly. It was like it was looking back at her.

A hand landed heavily on Steph’s shoulder. 

She hollered, a sharp bark that ended in “— _uuuck_!” and whirled around.

Rae was behind her, her wide dark eyes somehow wild, terrified, and pissed the fuck off all at once.

“Get back downstairs,” she bit out between her teeth. She glanced over Steph’s shoulder and before Steph could react she was dragging her out of the room, back toward the stairs. Steph stumbled after, resisting just so she could catch her footing, but Rae wasn’t slowing down.

“Rae, what— _stop yanking_ at me, just—”

“Who goes to explore on their own in _the_ _middle of the night_ , I mean, _mother of god_ , what are you doing?”

So great was Rae’s umbrage that Steph could barely throw a glance over her shoulder as she was pulled downstairs. Through the doorway to the room, she thought she saw the closet door move. 

But then they were stomping downstairs, and she was being forcibly sat back down on the sectional, and Rae was turning on the light and sitting down stubbornly beside her.

“I think something’s upstairs,” Steph said on a whisper.

Rae was staring defiantly at the door to the upstairs, as though daring something nefarious to descend. She seemed to radiate annoyance.

“ _I think so too_ ,” she said on a hiss, “but until it comes down here and makes me have a conversation with it, we’re going to sit tight and wait it out. We're not letting this butthead of a house win.” 

Steph didn’t know what to say. She often felt Rae was too wary, too ominous, too vulnerable to suggestion. She still felt that way, if Steph was honest, but it was hard to be too strident about when doors were opening on their own all around them.

“I don’t know why you’re always so anxious to make trouble come to you,” Rae muttered.

Steph didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure either. 

They both stayed awake this time, sitting under the yellow light in the living room, staring ahead, both tense and waiting. Steph found herself deeply grateful that Rae had pushed the couch against the wall, although she would never admit it out loud. Instead, she took Rae’s hand and hunkered down. 

Time passed like they were in a trance. Steph began to feel almost optimistic. The night must be nearly over. The renters would be here soon. They were almost done.

There was a thump from the back door, outside the kitchen. It was loud enough to make them both jump. Steph squeezed Rae’s hand, looking at her helplessly. Rae was staring with wide eyes in the direction of the kitchen. She looked ready to spring to her feet at any moment, but she was waiting for some sort of sign. Steph found herself waiting for her signal, ready to follow, giving Rae’s over-developed flight response its time to shine.

Something slammed hard against the glass of the picture window, the sound sending them both jerking to their feet, and then the sight of a tall, broad figure in the shadows of the porch making them both yell out indiscriminate swear words.

Seeing their fear, it pounded with one fist against the window again, angrily this time.

“Holy shit!” Rae shrieked, yanking Steph back behind her body.

But the Steph frowned, looking closer at the face glowering in the window, and even though it was hard to see in the shadows, after a second it was clear—

“Dad?”

Steph stood up, pushing out from behind Rae, who was still shaking and trying to nudge Steph behind her, too hyped to listen to what Steph was saying, and apparently not connecting who Steph’s dad was with the man on the porch, which was fair because they’d only met once before, and it had been disastrously short.

“Rae, it’s my dad,” she tried again. She made to open up the front door, and finally Rae appeared to connect the dots.

“Your dad.” She looked at Steph, then back at her dad, still glaring through the window, hands on his hips. “Your _dad_?”

Feeling anxious for a new reason, Steph opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch where her dad was standing, visibly twitching with anger.

“I knew I couldn’t trust you to do a simple task,” he erupted. 

She felt dazed, like she was dreaming. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

“I ask you to do one thing, and you can’t even do it on your own,” he said, glaring at Rae where she had come to stand at Steph’s shoulder. “I was going to leave you on your own, but then I thought I should just check, and of course you brought her with. After I specifically told you not to, you deliberately disobeyed him.

“He told you not to bring me?” Rae asked, sounding confused, and Steph felt instantly guilty, unsure if it was for lying to Rae, or disobeying her dad, or both.

Her dad scowled, like he was disgusted at having to address Rae directly. “You’re damn right, I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.”

“She’s twenty-five, you can’t forbid her from seeing someone, this isn’t a Victorian novel,” Rae was saying, but Steph’s dad spoke past her, focusing on Steph, looking angry and vindicated, for some reason.

“I knew you were too weak to do anything on your own. Scared of your own shadow, as usual.”

His words connected, and Steph felt floored. Her dad had just being trying to scare her again? Why would he—she didn’t mean to stutter, but her voice quavered anyway as she got out, “It was—that was you?” Her dad looked grimly pleased, his wide, florid face looking almost distorted with only the light from the living room illuminating the porch.

“Still afraid of it up here? Still a little baby who can’t get out of her own head?” 

She thought of the sudden, shaking terror at watching the door open, and then the feeling of someone else being in the room with her upstairs, and she couldn’t believe her dad would do that—but she wasn’t sure how he, if he _had_ done, then _how_ —

Behind her, Steph heard Rae swear, obviously having come to the same conclusion that Steph’s dad had been messing with them, as she hurried to pick their bags up off the floor and hurry outside. She prodded Steph fully out of the house, and began heading down the porch stairs to her car. “This is insane, we’re leaving.” 

Her dad made to stop them. “You just thought you’d come on up and see what you could steal, you little heathen?”

“Steal? The house is empty, I was helping your daughter _do you a favor_ , you maniac.”

“Oh, so you know it’s empty? Not enough that you seduce my only child—” 

“I repeat: you’re a _maniac_ , and we’re _leaving_. Steph, let’s go.” 

She let herself be drawn down the steps, taking in the sight of her dad’s car, the old banged-up Chevy where it was parked under the tree to the right of the driveway, Steph found herself frowning, puzzled. She was sure they would have seen it when they first pulled in. She’d parked their car just outside the garage.

“So you’ve just been terrorizing us all night? What in the hell is _wrong_ with you, you miserable asshole?” 

With the furious sounds of Rae and Steph’s dad arguing swirling around her, she glanced upward, feeling dizzy. Something caught out of the corner of her eye and she looked back at the house, at the windows on the second floor.

There was a shadow behind the blinds in the window of the last room on the hall. Like someone was watching the argument unfolding on the front lawn.

Beside her, Rae was tugging at her elbow. Steph turned away, distracted.

“I’m not her ‘little girlfriend’, we’re getting married,” Rae was ranting angrily, likely in response to something Steph’s dad had said, but honestly Steph had lost the thread of the debate at this point and could only blink, thrown by whatever she had seen in the window. 

Rae pulled Steph close, glaring at him in defiance. Steph saw her dad’s eyes dart to where Rae’s hand was clasped firmly around her waist. For a split second, she almost pulled away, instinctually ashamed before she could catch herself, and then she just felt more ashamed. 

“And you can either get with that or you can go fuck yourself, you goddamn psychopath, but either way we’re leaving.”

Steph turned again to the look up at the window.

“We’re not done here, I want to make sure you didn’t do any damage!”

The shadow was still there. As she blinked, she swore she saw it move.

“ _Damage_? You spend the night scaring the hell out of your own daughter and the only thing you’re worried about is property damage?” 

Something didn’t make sense, but Steph couldn’t quite unravel it in her head, and between Rae’s indignation and her dad’s fury, there wasn’t the space to work it through. 

“I have the right to visit my own property when I want, you degenerate.”

“You’re out of your mind, old man.”

She didn’t even remember hearing her dad’s car pull up, and the driveway was made of heavy gravel. She knew no one had been at the house when they’d arrived.

Her dad’s face turned a fine puce. “’Old man’? Who in the _hell_ do you think— _old man_?!—” 

The sound of a truck coming up the gravel road caught all of them off guard at once. Steph’s dad trailed off mid-sentence, and they froze as one, like they’d been caught out. 

The argument seemed to hang suspended in the air as they watched a pickup truck make its way laboriously up the uneven path toward them. A man and a woman sat in the front, and between them could just be seen the disheveled heads of two small children, cuddled together and sleeping. The closer they got, the easier it was to see the bed of the pickup, piled high with boxes and furniture and covered with a tarp.

The renters had arrived.

Rae seemed delighted to take advantage of the distraction. She dug out the keys and unlocked the car. She threw their backpacks in the back seat and touched Steph’s arm. When Steph turned, Rae’s eyes softened. She reached up and touched Steph’s cheek, and that’s when Steph realized she was crying.

“Come on,” Rae said quietly. “Let’s go.”

She looked back at her dad, who seemed to be struggling with whether to greet the renters, or to continue arguing with Steph and Rae. Over the bluff, the sky began to turn pink, then orange. The night was finally ending.

He was staring at her directly now, his mouth working. “You’re getting _married_?” He asked her, almost plaintively. She didn’t know why he sounded so surprised. She’d told him months ago, when she’d brought Rae to meet him. Steph’s mom had been excited when she’d heard the news the week before, which had perhaps made Steph a little foolhardy. Nothing could have prepared Steph for her dad’s disgust, his rage. 

It was why she’d been so surprised he’d asked her to help with the building in the country, with the rental. It had felt like an attempt at peace.

She watched his shoulders droop, his expression suddenly bleak. Like he was tired. Like he was defeated. 

For the first time, Steph found herself thinking: _good_. 

“Don’t ask me to help with the properties anymore. In fact, don't call me again." 

“Stephanie—” he called after her, but she got in the passenger side and slammed the door after her, leaving Rae to drive.

Rae three-point turned, and began to drive away just as the renters pulled to a stop beside Steph’s dad, Rae and Steph passing close enough to see the expression on the parents’ faces was a little apprehensive, each carrying a sleeping child. 

Steph glanced in the rearview mirror, and caught a view of the upstairs window. The drape had been drawn back a quarter of the way, and she was too far away to be sure now, but this time, it didn’t look like a shadow. It looked like a face. It looked like her dad, almost, only darker, and angrier.

Beside her, Rae reached to clasp her hand. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“You didn’t do anything,” Steph said faintly. She was still staring in the rearview, at whatever was staring back at her from the upstairs window, but then the driveway road turned and she lost sight of the house, of her dad and the renters, and of the face.Rae didn’t argue with her. She brought Steph’s hand up and kissed to

Rae didn’t argue with her. She brought Steph’s hand up and kissed to back of it. She looked infinitely calmer the farther they got from the house.

For a split second, Steph thought of the new family, and of her dad, and of going back to tell him, to _warn_ him, about the face upstairs. He would probably laugh at her, and then yell. He would be furious that she would have the gall to let herself be scared.

She looked over at Rae, and then settled into her seat. 

Her dad could fucking deal with it on his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumbles!
> 
> main: ohjafeeljadefinitelyfeel 
> 
> writing side blog: gblfiction


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